A few months ago, my pals over at Serious Eats asked if I’d be interested in delving into a bit of Cookie Science to explain how ingredients like butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking soda and baking powder function within a recipe, along with an in depth look at how techniques like creaming until “light and fluffy” truly work.

Over a period of six weeks, I blasted through twenty-five pounds of sugar, fifteen pounds of flour, twelve pounds of butter, six dozen eggs, and a quart of vanilla extract. Not only did I walk away with a better understanding of cookies in general, I came to know the ins and outs of three recipes in particular: oatmeal, gingersnaps, and old fashioned sugar cookies.

While the articles focused on general rules of thumb that could be applied to most any cookie, I couldn’t help but learn all the ins and outs of those three recipes in particular. For example, when it comes to sugar cookies: less is more.

While extra rich local and European butters made for a better tasting dough, they baked up indistinguishable from cookies that started with grocery store brands. Likewise, expensive “sparkling” sugars looked picture perfect prior to baking, but the extra large crystals formed a heavy crust that browned too quickly, distracting from the soft and chewy texture within.

Simple granulated sugar worked best, giving the cookies a snowy exterior before melting into a whisper thin shell (alternately, for those who prefer a bit of crunch, I discovered dunking the portioned dough in ice water helps achieve a crisper coat).

Curiously, cookies rolled in sanding sugar or nonpareils baked up a little fluffier— perhaps because of their slightly alkaline pH.

Whatever finishing touch you choose, these old fashioned sugar cookies will always be chewy and soft, with a hint of crispy caramelization only around the very edges. My brother is crazy about them after they’ve softened for a day or two in an airtight container, but I think they’re best fresh out of the oven. To that end, bake only what you need and refrigerate the rest; this dough will keep for up to a week.

Adjust oven rack to the middle position, preheat to 350°, and line two aluminum baking sheets with parchment (not wax!) paper.

Combine butter, sugar, baking powder, kosher salt, nutmeg, and vanilla extract in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Mix on low to moisten, increase to medium and beat until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Crack in the egg and continue beating until smooth, about a minute more, pausing halfway through to scrape the bowl with a flexible spatula. Resume mixing on low, sprinkle in flour, and continue until a thick dough is formed.

Divide into twenty six 1-ounce portions with a 2-Tablespoon scoop (the plain dough can be refrigerated in a zip-top bag for one week, or frozen up to a month; simply soften to room temperature before using). To help the decorative coating stick, roll each ball of dough until smooth and round, then tumble in a bowl of sanding sugar, nonpareils, or sugar until thoroughly coated.

Arrange on a parchment lined baking sheet, leaving 2” between each, and bake until pale gold around the edges but still puffy and soft in the middle, about 15 minutes. Cool directly on the baking sheet until firm, about 10 minutes, and enjoy warm. In an airtight container, leftovers will keep up to a week at room temperature.

*For those who prefer baking with grams or cup measurements, check out the original version posted on Serious Eats.

Yesterday, my web-host decided to eat the BraveTart database in a server migration. Fortunately, I had a backup of all my blog posts, recipes, and photography, so most everything was quickly restored. Unfortunately, Mail Chimp decided to interpret that activity as a call to action.

I’m sorry to assail your collective inbox twice in a morning, but it seemed silly to let the Ghost of BraveTart run amok without explanation. I’ve been laying low, continuing to work on The Infamous Book, as well as some amazing projects with King Arthur Flour, Eating Well, Saveur, and Serious Eats, which I look forward to sharing as soon as I’m able. Until then, I wanted to dash off a short explanation and apologize for the misfire.

I may be the kinda girl that makes her own Fruit Roll-Ups and Reese’s Cups, but a few of my favorite sweets elude the DIY approach.

At the top of that list, Cadbury Mini Eggs. There’s just no way to tumble lopsided blobs of milk chocolate with a liquid candy shell unless you have the help of industrial equipment. Perhaps I’ll crack the code someday, but in the meantime I’m willing to give Mini Eggs a pass.

I somehow made it all the way to culinary school before I’d ever tried one. My best friend had what seemed like a bizarre obsession with Mini Eggs, and she had a special ritual too. She’s put an unopened bag on my dashboard whenever we went out for a spring drive, leaving them in the sun while we’d shop for groceries. When we’d come back, the Mini Egg shells would be glossy and bright, but still crunchy against the melty chocolate inside.

I was hooked.

These cookies channel that same melty mojo, but with plenty of salt to balance the candy coated sweetness. Just don’t chomp down too soon, the oven does a heckuva lot more damage than the dashboard.

These cookies taste as dark as they look, with a brownie-like texture and richness. If you’re not a fan of Mini-Eggs, M&Ms and Reese’s Pieces offer a similar texture and pop of color. For a more natural approach, chunks of chopped white chocolate beautifully contrast the deep, dark dough.

Sift the flour and cocoa powder together on a large sheet of wax paper. With a hand or stand mixer, cream the butter, brown sugar, white sugar, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and vanilla for just a minute. None of that light and fluffy business.

Add the egg and mix until thoroughly incorporated, pausing to scrape down the bowl as needed. Sprinkle in the flour and cocoa and mix until combined, but don’t pitch the wax paper just yet. Add 3/4 of the Mini Eggs, 7 ounces if you want to be precise, and mix a few seconds more.

With a large cookie scoop (about 2 1/2 Tablespoons), drop roughly 16 scoops of dough onto the wax paper. Place 1 Mini Egg on each piece of dough, then roll into a smooth ball to partially cover the Mini Egg. If you’d rather not bake the cookies all at once, refrigerate the scooped dough in a zip-top bag until needed, up to a week (warm to room temperature before baking).

Arrange on a baking sheet and gently flatten the cookie with the bottom of a drinking glass, or leave ‘em alone for a batch of impressively thick and chunky cookies.

Top the cookies with the remaining Mini Eggs and bake until puffed and slightly firm around the edges. About 8 minutes for a fudgey texture, and 10 minutes for a chewy, chocolate chip cookie-like texture.

Cool directly on the baking sheet for a few minutes, then loosen the cookies with a metal spatula. Prepare to reenact a “Got Milk” commercial if you don’t have a tall glass on hand.

Store the cookies up to 3 days in an airtight container.Updated to add: many comments left on this post were subsequently lost in a database crash, but they live on with Google’s cached version.

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I may be the kinda girl that makes her own Fruit Roll-Ups and Reese’s Cups, but a few of my favorite sweets elude the DIY approach. At the top of that list: Cadbury Mini Eggs.

I haven’t posted about macarons in a while, but after few years and a bajillion emails I’ve found myself copy-and-pasting the answer to a couple of questions often enough to warrant a short and sweet PSA.

First: when macarons begin to brown around the edges within ten minutes of baking, don’t turn down the heat, check your dye.

Many brands of gel paste, including Wilton, don’t use a heat safe formula. In fact, you’ll notice a peculiar phrase right on the label: icing color. This indicates a type of dye that works best with fondant, frosting, white chocolate, marshmallows, and other unbaked sweets.

These dyes may work alright in cake, insulated under a layer of crust, but in macaron shells icing colors will fade on the surface in a way that looks remarkably like browning (though some colors degrade more than others). This leads many folks to crank the heat down low, which prevents the meringue inside from cooking through and results in wet or hollow macarons.

Most professional chefs (including my friends Joe the Baker and Dana Cree) use Americolor. I asked Jill Colonna for her favorite brand in Paris, and she recommends DecoRelief. My longtime macaron comrade-at-arms Mardi Michels uses powdered food coloring from Crystal Colours and LorAnn. I haven’t tried Sugarflair Spectral, but its Amazon listing specifically mentions use in baking, and it’s available in the US and UK.

If you struggle with cracks or footless macarons and want to improve your technique: please skip the food coloring! You can’t dump petrochemicals into a batter and expect it to behave exactly as it would in its all-natural state. If you’re trying to master the technique, give yourself a fighting chance and leave the coal tar dye for another day.

A second problem that I’ve seen again and again is the paradox of overmixed yet cracked macarons. This can result from spotty technique, too much vigorous stirring and not enough deflation, but overall the balancing act of macaronage is exponentially easier with a thin and flexible spatula.

Unlike Angel’s Food Cake or Soufflé where you want to handle the meringue as gently as possible, macaronage is all knocking out excess air. I do this by smearing the meringue against the bowl with a flexible spatula. Especially thick plastic spatulas and hard silicon spatulas don’t have much give. Instead of bending to crush the meringue against the bowl, they simply stir it around, leaving most of the air intact.

Plenty of people have adjusted their technique to make use of rigid spatulas, but if you constantly wind up with a runny macaron batter that bakes up with cracks instead of feet, try switching to soft plastic. I have a collection of flimsy, beat up, no-name restaurant grade spatulas. Rather than searching for a specific brand, head to the store (or your own tool cabinet) to find a spatula soft enough to curl gently against the palm of your hand to form a “C” shape.

It usually takes a bottle of food coloring to put a Saint Patrick’s Day dessert on the table, but I thought I’d share a few ways to celebrate with something a little tastier than dye. Even if these sweets don’t strike your fancy, you can use the key ingredients (basil, pumpkin seeds, pistachios, and matcha) to add a last minute splash of green to your own favorite recipes.

These baked custards get their color from a few big handfuls of fresh basil, ground into a pulp with sugar. Pair with a spoonful of strawberry or raspberry jam, or fresh berries when spring actually kicks into gear.

A handful of raw pumpkin seeds or pepitas will add a toasty crunch and bright dash of color, without any special effort at all. Skip the cinnamon and ginger for a more classic brownie, or keep the cozy flavor if you’re having a less than spring-like St. Patrick’s Day (it’s snowing in Kentucky at this very moment).

Cut or roll the chilled gianduja into truffles for dipping in chocolate, serve at room temperature over ice cream, or spread onto a slice of toast like Nutella. The nutty paste has a mellow creaminess from white chocolate, crunch bits and pieces of pistachio brittle, and pistachio oil for a deep, emerald green.

The bitterness of green tea tames the notorious sweetness of plain macarons, while adding an almost herbal aroma. You can double up on green by replacing the almonds with an equal weight of pistachios, or use pumpkin seeds for totally Nut Free macarons.

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A few of my favorite ways to add an all natural pinch of green to your holiday table.